The Effects of Early Childhood Teachers'' Field Problem Awareness
on Burnout and turnover Intention


So Yeon Kim


Graduate School of Education
Pukyong National University


.ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the field problem awareness of kindergarten teachers on their burnout and turnover intention in an effort to seek ways of relieving the burnout of early childhood teachers, lowering their turnover intention and improving the quality of education.

Three research questions were posed:
1. What are the relationships of the field problem awareness of early childhood teachers to their burnout and turnover intention?
2. What influence does field problem awareness exert on burnout?
3. What influence does field problem awareness exert on turnover intention?

The subjects in this study were 250 teachers who worked in kindergartens in the region of Busan. After a survey was conducted, the answer sheets from 214 respondents were analyzed except for the data that included unfaithful answers.
The instrument used to assess field problem awareness was Kim Kyung-mi (2012)''s questionnaire that modified Kim Shin-young(1997)''s Checklist for Problems Perceived by Teachers in Early Childhood Education Institution on the basis of Micklo(1993)''s Teacher Problem Checklist Prekindergarten(TPC-PRK). The instrument used to measure burnout was Kim Jeong-hui(1992)''s questionnaire that was an adapted version of Maslach and Jackson(1986)''s Maslach Burnout Inventory(MBI). The instrument used to measure intention to live was Seo Ji-young(2002)''s questionnaire that adapted Allen and Mayer(1990)''s scale to suit early childhood teachers. As for data analysis, a statistical package SPSS 16.0 was employed to obtain statistical data on mean and standard deviation, and correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were made.

The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, the relationship of field problem awareness to burnout and turnover intention was analyzed in detail. As a result, the correlation coefficients of the variables were statistically significant except for those of several subfactors. Regarding the correlation between overall field problem awareness and burnout, the teachers were more burnt out when they thought there were more problems with teaching-learning, the development of teacher ability, time management, facilities, relationship with the principals, relationship with colleagues, programs, relationship with parents and the systems. As to the correlation between overall field problem awareness and turnover intention, their turnover intention was stronger when they thought there were more problems with time management, relationship with the principals, the systems, the development of teacher ability, facilities, relationship with colleagues, relationship with parents, teaching- learning and programs.
Second, concerning the impact of field problem awareness on burnout, the most influential subfactor was teaching-learning, followed by the development of teacher ability and programs. In regard to the relationship between field problem awareness and the subfactors of burnout, emotional exhaustion had the closest correlation with the development of teacher ability and facilities. A waning sense of achievement was most correlated with relationship with parents, followed by teaching-learning. Dehumanization was under the largest influence of field problem awareness about time management, followed by teaching-learning, programs and facilities.
Third, the subfactor of field problem awareness that had the biggest impact on turnover intention was time management, followed by relationship with the principals and programs.
The findings of the study suggest that in order to lower the burnout and turnover intention of early childhood teachers, how to resolve problems in kindergarten and to boost the quality of education should carefully be considered.